Apple Buys Shazam

Apple Inc. agreed to acquire music-identification service Shazam, taking ownership of one of the first apps to demonstrate the power of the iPhone, recognizing songs after hearing just a few bars of a tune.

Apple Music and Shazam are a natural fit, sharing a passion for music discovery and delivering great music experiences to users. The Shazam app uses the microphone on a smartphone or computer to identify almost any song playing nearby and then point’s users to places they can listen to it in future, such as Apple Music or Google’s YouTube.

While Shazam has been popular with customers, it struggled turning its clever music service into a business that justified its valuation. It expanded beyond simple audio recognition in 2010 by adding capabilities that let television viewers “Shazam” an ad, which would then open a promotion from the advertiser on a user’s device. The company said this feature was used 700,000 times during the 2014 Super Bowl broadcast.

In November, Shazam had about 175 million monthly active users globally across iOS and Android, according to research firm App Annie. The U.S. is the largest single market, with about 20 million active users in November, while the U.K. had about 4 million in the same month. The acquisition would help Apple embed that capability more deeply into its music offerings. The company’s digital assistant Siri gained Shazam integration in 2014, so users could ask it what song is playing in the background.

Microsoft buys SwiftKey

Microsoft had acquired British based software keyboard maker SwiftKey and it would be integrated with the tech giant “intelligent systems” for mobile devices. SwiftKey makes keyboard apps which are used on some 300 million Android and Apple devices, replacing the default interfaces with a more efficient one.

SwiftKey, which uses artificial intelligence to help make keystrokes more intuitive and efficient, expands Microsoft efforts in the domain. SwiftKey estimates that its users have saved nearly 10 trillion keystrokes, across 100 languages, saving more than 100,000 years in combined typing time. Microsoft would continue to make the service available on all platforms not just those operated by Microsoft.

SwiftKey for most smartphone users comes through as just another third party keyboard app, an upgrade on the default keyboard that most platforms offer. But beyond the app and its user interface, what the company offers, and something that makes it attractive for the likes of Microsoft, is the very technology that powers the app, artificial Intelligence or AI. Its predictive technology learns from the user’s personal writing style, on the basis of previous usage of text, chat messages or social media interactions, and predicts the next word or phrase that the user intends to type.